*
When we pull up to the house Elise comes out onto the porch, eager to be part of the action. I think it disappoints her to see that Jem is still so sick, even though he’s home.
Dad and I each lend him a shoulder for the long, slow walk inside—because Jem does insist on walking, even though it’s no great difficulty to carry him. The distance is about twenty feet between the car and the living room, and by the time we get to the couch Jem has to sit down. He can’t get a breath.
“You shouldn’t stay down here,” Mom says. “You should be in a proper bed. You need your rest.”
Jem complains for the sake of his image, but doesn’t put up much of a fight as I lift him and carry him upstairs to his room. Mom and Elise tuck him into freshly washed sheets that he can’t smell and prop him up on pillows to ease his breathing.
Dad starts measuring out pills from the bottles on the nightstand. Mom goes to get a glass of water, and I leave to move the car into the garage. The only one who doesn’t move is Elise. She sits cross-legged on the bed beside Jem, watching him like a loyal dog.
Moving the car is too short a task, and I dread having to go back inside. It’s tense like this when he’s ill at home. We all walk on eggshells, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I close the garage door and call Celeste. She asks if I’m still at the hospital and I tell her we just got home.
“How are things?”
“No worse than usual.” That’s not saying much.
“How are you holding up?”
“Surviving.” It’s a mark of how well she knows me that Celeste doesn’t ask if I want to talk about it. If I wanted to, I would.
“My phone is always on me. Call whenever you need to, okay?”
“I will.”
“We’ll work out a visit when things settle down again.”
“Alright.”
“Should I let you get back? Or do you want to shoot the shit and pretend?”
“I just wanted to touch base.” Celeste has a way of centering me. I like the normalcy of her—absolutely nothing changed when I moved away.
“I’ll let you go then.”
“’Kay.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.” We say goodbye and I pocket my phone. I have to get back inside. There’s so little I can do for my brother, and it would be a horrible thing to be AWOL when he really does need something from me.
I enter the kitchen to find Elise sitting at the island with the phone in front of her. Mom stands nearby, listening with a stony expression. The call is on speakerphone and Elise puts a finger to her lips when she sees me. I listen to the voice and recognize it as Willa’s. I don’t think she knows she’s on speakerphone.
“I get off work at three. I can come straight after.”
Elise is inviting her over? Jem just got settled.
“That works,” Elise agrees. “See you then.” She hangs up the phone and I turn to Mom.
“You think he’s up to having visitors so soon?”
Both Elise and Mom shake their heads. “Jem insisted,” Elise says. “We can make sure she doesn’t stay long. A bit of company might make him feel better.”
Mom sighs resignedly and admits that Willa does know how to behave around sick people. “I think we can trust her not to disturb him.”
It’s only forty-five minutes until Willa is due to arrive. I ask Jem if he wants to take a shower. Three days of nothing but sponge baths haven’t done him any favors. Jem agrees and I ask Dad for help. An extra set of hands is necessary to help Jem out of his pajamas. We strip him on the edge of the bed and wrap a bathrobe around his skinny shoulders.
While Jem brushes his teeth, struggling not to cough for two whole minutes, Dad does all the work of covering up the central line in his chest. I’m glad he knows how, because I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I run the water hot at first to warm the bathroom and the surface of the tub, and then dial it back to a comfortable temperature.
Dad reaches out to help Jem off with his bathrobe, and Jem asks him if he wouldn’t mind leaving.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll be all right. Eric’s here.” It’s a non-answer; one that gives Dad cause to cast suspicious looks between us. Likely there’s something that Jem wants to say to me in private, and I’m not sure I want to hear it.
“If you need anything I’ll be down the hall.” Dad leaves and Jem sort of sighs. Maybe it’s not a sigh. Maybe he’s gasping for breath.
“What was that about?”
“I can’t deal with him in doctor mode,” Jem says. He looks to the shower and changes the subject. “Is the water running warm yet?”
I help him out of his bathrobe and lend him my shoulder for the short walk between counter and tub. A small part of me feels bad about this; he has to sacrifice so much dignity just to take a shower. But the better part of me just wants to help my brother and not be ashamed by it.
Jem’s knees shake with standing. He holds onto the towel rack with his free hand and tries to step into the tub. He can barely lift his foot half the distance he needs to clear the lip. His shin bumps softly against the side of the tub and he tries again.
“Here.” I lift Jem up and sit him down on the floor of the bath. He can’t possibly stand for an entire shower. I detach the showerhead and run the water over him to warm up.
“You don’t mind doing this, do you?”
“Of course not.” I give him the showerhead to hold and stand up to reach the soap off the shelf. He just has to sit there, warming himself with the water, while I wash his back and neck and head. I would say his hair, but it’s hardly worth the name. The sparse strands look like a fourteen-year-old’s first mustache, in between the bald spots. A few of those hairs get washed down the drain as I rinse him off.
He has to wash his own chest—he knows how not to disturb his Hickman. I help him wash his arms and legs and feet.
“Help me up slowly?” he says when he’s ready to get out of the tub. I get three towels ready. One I drape over the toilet and the other I wrap around his shoulders while he’s still in the tub. Moving him causes a head rush and Jem throws his arm out like he’s going to fall.
“I’ve got you.” I set him down on the toilet and wrap that towel around his hips.
“My fuckin’ head…” he mutters.
“Relax.” I use the third towel to dry him off while he tries not to shiver. I try to do the job as fast as possible, but there’s no keeping Jem warm in this state. I ease him into his bathrobe and walk him back to bed.
He’s too dizzy to sit up alone, so Jem lies down while I collect pajamas and socks from his drawers. “I forget what it’s like,” he says. “Being healthy.”
“This is just a minor setback.”
“I feel like shit.”
I set the clothes down on the bed and give him what Elise calls my Big Brother Glare. “Are you going to let Willa see you feeling sorry for yourself?”
That shuts him up.
Willa: June 8 to 10
Thursday
One short conversation has completely changed the tone of my day. School is something that happens far away. It’s a familiar feeling—this invisible, airless chamber that separates me from the throngs of other students. I felt it when Tessa was dying, when I couldn’t find anything funny or pleasurable and everyone else’s life seemed to be so simple and perfect. After that, I felt nothing for a long time.
Now, I’m stuck with the knowledge that Jem has an infection serious enough to merit a night in the hospital. I think Eric was full of shit when he said Jem would be home so soon. The hospital wouldn’t take a patient so lately in remission and send him back home the very next day.
Up ahead I see Diane, gesturing widely as she complains to Paige about something inconsequential. I have no intention of approaching her, but my feet steer me that way and I walk through the hallway crowd, right up to Diane. I get so close that she has to take a step back.
�
�Hi Willa,” Paige says, right before she gets it that I’m in no mood for pleasantries. Diane wrinkles her nose at me. She takes one step and her back comes up against the bank of lockers.
“You’re standing too close,” she says in that annoying soprano voice.
“Shut up, whore.” She gasps indignantly. “Next time you get sick, cover your fucking mouth when you cough.” I reach up and close a hand around her mouth and jaw. She tries to dodge my hand and I press her head back against the lockers. “Or better yet, cover your nose too.” My other hand covers her nostrils. Diane starts to struggle. “Until you fucking suffocate and relieve us of your presence, you dumb bitch.”
I let her go, and a small part of me enjoys the look of fear in her eyes. If there’s anything I miss about my life in St. John’s, it’s that people automatically knew not to fuck with me.
I walk away, and not twenty minutes later a hall monitor summons me to the front office. Diane squealed. I miss out on first period, sitting in the vice principal’s office while Diane sobs out her overdramatic rendition of events. I deny everything. There are no marks on her; she can’t prove a damn thing.
“Other people saw!” Diane protests shrilly. Paige is called down to the office to corroborate. She doesn’t seem to remember a thing either.
I don’t know if it’s fear of me or deep dislike of Diane that motivates Paige, but I owe her for this.
*
Elise and Eric aren’t at lunch. I don’t usually sit with either of them, but I notice their absence in the cafeteria. It scares me. Did something happen to Jem, bad enough that they had to leave school?
I go out to my car to make a phone call. Elise’s cell doesn’t even ring. The call goes straight to an automated message from the phone company that says the number is unavailable. She has her phone turned off—she’s at the hospital.
I drift through the remainder of my classes like a living ghost. It’s strange how easily that mode of being comes back to me after all this time. When my mind isn’t blank with incomprehensible fear of the future and indifference to the present, it’s winding in circles, and it always comes back to the sneaking suspicion that Eric told me half-truths this morning. What if it’s not just an infection? What if he relapsed and doesn’t want me to know?
Four months to rebuild my life in Smiths Falls, and for all that, it’s flimsy and completely out of my control.
Frank is still at work when I get home, and the silence of the house seems oppressive. I sit down in front of the TV with the intention of turning it on, but I don’t. I sit there and stare at the box, wondering what Jem is doing right now.
There’s a knock at the front door. I grudgingly get up to answer it, and when I open the door I very nearly slam it closed again. It’s Luke, and he doesn’t look friendly. He looks tough—the happy-go-lucky kid is gone from his eyes. He holds himself in front of me with something resembling respect, and nods hello.
I lock the screen door. He could still get through it if he really wanted to, but some semblance of a barrier makes me feel better.
“Willa.” Luke shifts his eyes awkwardly and says, “Can we talk?”
“Okay.”
“Can we go for a walk?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Luke’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t lose his temper this time. “That’s fair, I guess.”
“What did my brother say to you? He hasn’t been down to Doug’s place since.” Every time I’m home, Frank is unfailingly parked in front of the TV or puttering around the garage. The man needs a hobby and a break from the loneliness.
Luke shrugs dismissively. “He said a lot of things.”
“He told me you denied everything.”
“Would you admit to being beaten up by a girl?”
“I think you just didn’t want to own up to calling me a murderer.” I start to shut the door.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
I want to laugh at the absurdity of such a question. “No, not okay. Not okay at all, Luke.”
“I was upset.”
“Still not okay.”
“I like you.”
“You thought I was an easy lay.”
“I was hurt by what you said.”
“Good.”
My belligerence finally starts to get to him, and he snaps, “I’m trying to apologize here.”
“And I’m treating you the same way you treated me when I tried to mend things.”
Luke leans his arm on the doorframe. It’s a position of proximity and dominance that I’m not sure I like. “Can we make it okay so our brothers can be on good terms again? Doug’s been in a nonstop bad mood since they fought.”
“So they did fight. You want to tell me what else was said?”
Luke fidgets at that. He’s not willing to own up to any more of his less-than-admirable behavior.
“If things are okay between us, it’ll be okay between them too,” he reasons sternly.
“It was okay when we weren’t talking.”
“We’re practically family.”
I bury my face in my hands and groan. I just want this conversation to end. “Fine. We’ll be civil. But this is never going to be okay.”
“You’ll never forgive me?” he asks flatly. “Even though you know what it’s like to make a mistake.”
I just shake my head and reach for the door. “Luke, the day I forgive myself for that mistake is the day I forgive you for using it against me.” He grabs the screen door handle and tries to jiggle it before I can shut him out. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Friday
After school, I put in a call to Mom because I haven’t checked in with her for a few weeks. At first it’s nice. Since she quit her second therapist and started going to a third, her method of dealing with all that resentment toward me is to act like nothing happened. She talks to me like I’m a kid away at boarding school—how are my classes, my friends, my job. She tries to talk about boys like our last phone call didn’t involve a fight over Jem, who she carefully refrains from mentioning. I don’t bring him up either. She’d sense my weakness for him, and then she’d worry.
“Are you still going to counseling?” she finally asks.
“Every week.”
“Do you feel comfortable there?”
The group leader is a twit whose main qualification seems to be a bible study certificate; I spend more time worrying about the other group members than I do my own problems; it’s yet another of my life’s activities that involves Jem; it depresses me that I don’t know how to pray.
“I’m learning a lot about myself.” Or, rather, who I want to be.
When I come downstairs I find that someone besides Frank is here. Luke is in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and shifting his eyes like a criminal.
“Who the hell let you in?”
“Your brother’s out back. He doesn’t know I’m here. The door was open.” He gestures to the front hall.
“What the hell were you thinking, coming here?”
“That I owe you. Big.”
Shoot me. I want to scream but it comes out as a sigh. “Get in the fucking car.”
“What?”
I grab my keys off the counter and give Luke the eye. “You heard me.”
*
“Do you remember your mom?” I take the road into town. It’s late in the afternoon, but we might make it in time to catch the last of the lunch special at Frank’s favorite diner. I need to be normal for five minutes, and to get out of my head. But if I get out, I might never get back in.
Luke gives me a curious look. I give him a stiff glare in return. If he knows all my issues, his are fair game too.
“Sort of.”
“Does Briana?”
“I don’t think so.” Luke reaches over to turn on the radio, but not before murmuring, “I can’t remember how she smelled.”
*
We miss the lunch special. The fact that I find this disappointing shows just how cl
ose I am to becoming unhinged. I wonder if that’s better or worse than being numb.
“What happened to your hand?” Luke asks as we peruse the dinner menu. I’ve lost count of how many people have asked me that since I ditched the gloves.
“Mauled by a tiger.”
The waitress comes to take our orders, and when she’s gone Luke feels the need to break the silence. “So why aren’t you with Harper right now?” he asks. “The two of you still together?” Luke’s tone is complex—like he doesn’t want to know the answer, but knows exactly what answer he does want to hear.
“He’s in the hospital.” I don’t want to look at Luke’s face and see I told you so written all over it. “Don’t tell Frank.”
“Why aren’t you there with him?” Luke asks with genuine curiosity. “He’s your…. You should be there.”
“He’s immunocompromised. They’re limiting his visitors to reduce his risk of further infection.”
“I don’t want to pry, but is his cancer back?”
“No.”
Luke closes his menu and stares at me. I can feel his eyes on the top of my head. “Do you want me to go with you to the hospital?”
“Is that your idea of making things up to me?”
Luke tries to take my hand and I withdraw it. He sighs like my noncompliance bothers him. “It’s what a friend would do.”
“We’re not friends.”
“What are we?”
“We’re in it for our brothers.” And that’s all this is, now.
When Luke and I get back to the house, Frank has the garage door open, puttering around as usual. He looks surprised, and then suspicious, as Luke and I both step out of the car.
“Where were you two?” he asks.
“We had lunch.”
Frank’s eyes shift between us, trying to riddle it out. There isn’t much to infer from our silence or posture, but he seems to sense that we’re back on speaking terms. Neither of us has a black eye, at least.
“Everything’s good, I trust?”
Wake Page 72
